


This Is How You (We) Survived The War

by gaialux



Category: Rambo Series (Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Post-Movie(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-III. Rambo is back in the USA again, but this time he tries something different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is How You (We) Survived The War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galerian_ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galerian_ash/gifts).



> Happy yuletide! Awesome obscure pairing, and I hope this is something like what you were looking for.

It was just like the first time. With Rambo being back in the States and not knowing where he would ever fit in. Trautman did a little better with the same set of circumstances; he already had a home, a lifestyle he could blend back into after no time at all.

"You can stay, John," Trautman said right away. "You said it yourself — your war is over. Rest it out here for a while."

"I will," he said, but didn't meet Trautman's eye. "I just need to figure some stuff out first."

So, just like the first time, he goes out with nothing more than a few dollars in his pocket and a sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. Only this time he has no person to find, no place to go. He leaves Washington quickly and travels south. Ends up all the way in California and sleeps on the beach for a few early spring nights. The sand reminds him a little of his time in Thailand, but not enough that he wants to stay here permanently. He considers Arizona but decides that's not right, either.

Back in the city, at a gas station, thumb stuck out at the side of the road and some vague notion of  _belonging_.

"Where you heading?" The guy in the car leans over and asks. He has a Dodger's baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and Rambo can just see the slightest hint of a smile fitting through.

Without thinking it's, "D.C," that comes out. Maybe his subconscious knows more that his concious could ever hope to.

 

* * *

 

Trautman lives in an ordinary town in an ordinary street in an ordinary house. Rambo walks along the pavement and expects to be picked up again — the whole thing from years prior thrown back into action. That's PTSD, a doctor once told him, Memories and moments he'll never be able to forget. It's not too bad, all things considered, because he can still function and keep going on in life. Though where exactly he's supposed to do this, he doesn't know.

Rambo goes up to the door and rings the doorbell. Outlined in gold and sending a chime through the house that Rambo can faintly hear even outside. He waits a few more seconds before thinking about running. Maybe Arizona is good idea after all — return home and try to start all over again.

Then footsteps, the door opening, and Trautman standing there.

"John," he says and, just like that, a new chapter begins.

 

* * *

 

He sleeps a lot.

Sometimes the sun is high, sometimes low, and sometimes gone. Often enough he wakes in a sweat and forgets exactly where he is. He expects gunshots, landmines exploding, the whirl of helicopter rotors slicing through the sky. But there's none of this. Just silence or the distant hum of a car. Once, when he turns over and looks toward the door, he sees Trautman standing there.

He manages to sleep soundly for a few hours after that.

 

* * *

 

"I take it you're planning to keep the knife?" Trautman asks him one morning over black coffee and toast.

"Yeah," Rambo says. It hasn't left his side and now lies on the table. He knows he doesn't need it — perhaps won't  _ever_ need it — but he can't let it out of his sight. That's one of the few things he's always been sure of.

"You know you won't need it," Trautman says, an echo to his thoughts. "You're safe here."

"You might be," Rambo says. He runs his fingers along the handle of the knife, the ridges, and can remember every time he's ever used it. "But I ain't ever been safe."

 

* * *

 

Trautman helps him get a job at a meat locker and he falls into a 6-to-2 job he decides is the closest he'll ever get to a run-o'-the-mill career. Flipping through frozen cow carcasses and then changing out of blood-stained clothing to go home.

 _Home_.

It's never a word he'll say out loud, but he likes the way it sits in his mind. Engrained, constant. A place that's finally, maybe, starting to border on safe.

When he goes  _home_ , Trautman's usually there. Rambo hasn't asked him what he does all day, but thinks it might still have to do with the military and doesn't want to know. He made one promise and one promise only to himself on the plane back to America: _You're done. And you're never going back._

"Good day?" Trautman asks him, like he sometimes does.

Rambo's usual response is something noncommittal and he thinks Trautman figures out the real answer is along the lines of  _As good as a day spent being around frozen meat can be_.

And that's the routine they've set.

 

* * *

 

Rambo looks at Trautman often enough and sees the man who was his commander. The one who trained him and taught him all he knows. Every bad thing in Rambo's life has been, in one way or another, due to Trautman. But so has every  _good_ thing. Somewhere along the line, things blur and Trautman goes from Colonel to best friend and back again until it's a mismatch Rambo can't tear apart. Soon, he stops trying.

He doesn't ask Trautman about it. Doesn't attempt to pry into exactly how Trautman views him. This life Rambo has here is more than he deserves — no way he's risking the chance of screwing it up.

So it's surprising when, on Rambo's third month back in California, something changes. It had to have been growing even before that, slowly building piece by piece like the tower of the Monastery he was helping work on, but it jumps out and grabs Rambo all the same.

One minute they're standing in the kitchen and the next Trautman has cleared the distance between them, Rambo having the shortest of moments to think "he's going to—" before Trautman finishes the thought with the action. His lips rough but Rambo responding to them anyway. Like this was what he was always supposed to do. At least until logic tries to reason with him and Rambo pulls back.

"No?" Trautman steps back and the space between them seems much larger.

"Colonel, I—"

"You don't have to call me Colonel," Trautman says.

Rambo can't not. Instead he opts to remain silent and lets Trautman draw him forward again into another kiss.

 

* * *

  

Later, Rambo's mostly asleep. In that vague stage between awareness and dreams. He feels a hand touch against his side, smooth down against his hip, and when it's combined with "John" he relaxes back into the mattress.

Maybe the promise he made to himself will finally work out after all.


End file.
